The only registered regional human rights organization is once again on the verge of closing.

The Department of Justice of the Mahiliou Regional Executive Committee has issued a warning to the Mahiliou Human Rights Center for the lack of a legal address.

Back in September 2014, the Department of Justice sent to the Regional Court a lawsuit urging to suspend for three months the NGOs’ activities due to lack of a legal address. The lawsuit said that the union “failed to provide in due time the documents required for registration of changes of legal address”. In this regard, the human rights association received two warnings that were not appealed, and the revealed violations were not corrected. The authorities argued that the actual area of the premises rented by the NGO was 0.3 square meters less than the figure specified in the official papers, and the founder of the organization was ordered to amend the documents.

On October 1, the human rights defenders said they were going to sign a contract for a new legal address. Therefore, on November 4, the Regional Court ruled to dismiss the case.

However, the landlord soon terminated the lease agreement and the NGO once again lost a legal address.

Commenting on the situation, local human rights activist Barys Bukhel said that the actual basis for suspension of the contract was pressure from the authorities on the landlord’s family, who are entrepreneurs.

Once again, the leaders of the Mahiliou Human Rights Center have to hurry in order to find another room so that they could get a legal address and avoid closure of the organization.